I have broad interests and experience as a journalist, covering the auto business, the consumer-packaged goods industry, entrepreneurship, and others, as well as politics, culture, media and religion. I used to cover the car business for The Wall Street Journal, which nominated me and some colleagues for a Pulitzer Prize for our coverage of General Motors. I've also covered autos for Edmunds.com, AutoTrader.com, Automotive News and Advertising Age. I am a major contributor to Chief Executive Magazine, Brandchannel.com, Townhall Magazine, New Nutrition Business magazine and the Journal, among other outlets. I hope that having lived around Flyover Country for most of my life gives me a grounded perspective.

Acura Launches New RLX With An Attitude, But Is It Enough?

Honda is trying to address the woes of its Acura brand with a one-two punch: better vehicles, and better advertising. But so far it isn’t clear if either is landing with the kind of authority necessary for Acura to close the sales and perception gaps with U.S. luxury-market leaders in those areas such as a renascent Lexus and a rising Audi.

Acura demonstrated its two-part strategy during March Madness telecasts on CBS with advertisements for the new 2014 RLX sedan, an important, all-new nameplate taking the lead in an all-new advertising campaign for the brand.

“We’re refreshing the whole brand, and started with entry-level vehicles last year,” Gary Robinson, manager of Acura advertising and brand, told me about the 2012 introductions of the “gateway” ILX sedan and a new version of the RDX crossover.

“This year, it’s all about filling in the prestige market, beginning with the RLX. And a couple of months from now, a new MDX [crossover] comes out. With both of them you’re talking about price points in the $40,000s and into the $50,000s and all of our newest technology.”

Also, as it replaces the old RL model, RLX is getting a boost from a new tag line — “Luxury, taken to a whole new level.” (The theme and RLX campaign predates Acura’s spanking-new relationship with ad agency Mullen, of Interpublic Group.) The idea of the RLX ads is to get American upscale consumers to take notice of Acura like they haven’t before and even to get emotional about a brand that remains sort of mushy to most of them.

At first glance, Acura would seem to be on a roll already. Sales in 2012 were up by nearly 27 percent over 2011, to more than 156,000 vehicles, keeping the Honda-owned marque ahead of both Audi and Infiniti, which it considers the primary competition for Acura.

But the truth is that the huge year-over-year increase mostly reflected an easy comparison with a disastrous 2011, when deep supply woes resulted from the tsunami and earthquake in Japan in March and flooding in Thailand in the fall. For 2013 through February, Acura sales were up only by about 6 percent over a year ago.

And what’s more, the condition of the Acura brand might have been even worse. Many Americans consider Toyotas and Hondas, not Infinitis and Audis, to be Acura’s true equivalents. At one point last year, about 21 percent of people who considered an Acura also looked at a Toyota, while fewer than 13 percent of people looking at an Audi also considered Acura, according to Edmunds.com data.

“We have these great, luxurious products, but there’s a gap between the customer perception of what Acura is, and the luxury that is in our cars,” Mike Accavitti, American Honda’s CMO, told Advertising Age.

Robinson said that ILX and the new RDX were meant to be just a start to refreshing the Acura brand and vehicle line, and that this year’s salvos — the RLX and MDX introductions, and the new advertising campaign — will do some heavier lifting.

And while the expressed point of the first TV ads is that RLX is so luxurious, it makes the owner forget about other luxury goods — an emotional appeal — the campaign is largely unfolding around boasting about the product itself and particular attributes: “Jewel Eye” LED headlights, the next generation of the AcuraLink connected-car system, and Acura’s proprietary Precision All-Wheel Steer system.

The new version of AcuraLink, Robinson said, represents the fruits of a new partnership with Panasonic for DVD systems so that “the stuff they’re putting in our vehicles is the same kind of quality levels that they put in airplanes.” He said Acura had learned from its own mistakes and those of competitors that when it comes from infotainment technology, “We need to be measured and to resist the temptation to put stuff out before it’s ready. Now it’s ready.”

Every major competitor to RLX is a rear-wheel-drive sedan or has available all-wheel drive, which traditionally have been associated with luxury performance cars because of handling characteristics that are generally perceived as superior to front-wheel drive. But RLX is going it alone in the segment with front-wheel drive even though the RL it replaces was all-wheel drive.

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